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By viv, 21 February, 2012 8:00 am

The ‘How can we transform neighbourhoods together?’ GeoVation Challenge is looking for great ideas using geography, technology and design to help people help each other in their communities across the country.

Greg Hadfield, a former national newspaper journalist and internet entrepreneur, is organising the UK’s first Open-data Cities Conference. In this guest post, he outlines the importance of geography in an open-data city.

The Open-data Cities Conference seeks to focus on how publicly-funded organisations can engage with citizens to build more creative, prosperous and accountable communities.

It will be attended by more than 200 people from the country’s biggest cities, including executives from public and private sectors, arts and cultural organisations, as well as the creative and digital industries.

The conference – to be held at Brighton Dome Corn Exchange on April 20 – will address profound questions facing cities and citizens in the 21^st century.

What do we mean by an “open-data city”? How do we use emerging technology to create the future we want, rather than wait passively for technology to create a take-it-or-leave-it future for us? And how do we ensure UK cities are at the forefront of an historic shift?

The conference builds on the work of the Open-data Brighton and Hove Group over the last year or so.

During that time, the group’s 120 members have focused on which datasets will be most useful to developers and in what order of priority.

The myriad civic data we have talked about relates to school performance, catchment areas, and property prices; bus times and bus-stops, taxi ranks, car parks, and traffic congestion; about energy use, CO2 emissions, and carbon footprints. The list is literally endless.

Throughout, however, group discussions have repeatedly returned to maps and mapping: maps as navigational devices; maps of roads and transport routes; maps to delineate postcodes, geographical communities, or socio-demographic clusters; and maps to show all sorts of boundaries, between parliamentary constituencies, electoral wards, polling districts, and school catchment areas.

In brief, the key question is: what are the mapping needs of an open-data city and how can such needs be met.

When most of us think of maps, we think of the physical environment: landmarks, roads, buildings, contours, and so on. But what sort of maps will be useful in open-data cities?  Much will remain the same. The fundamental real-world infrastructure of the city will be the basis on which most maps are built. The information necessary to build and re-build or re-purpose such maps will be openly available.

For example, for someone with access to all the election data about a city – political parties, candidates, votes, turnout, location of polling stations – it will be easy to visualise such data on a map of polling districts, wards and constituencies.

Suppose, though, that the emergence of open-data cities coincides with the creation of the “internet of things”, cities in which uniquely-identifiable “things” are linked to information-rich virtual representations on the internet.

Suppose also that the devices accessing to the internet are not restricted to desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

What if your car is connected to the internet? What sort of maps might then be required by someone living in – or visiting – an open-data city?

New landmarks on the cityscape might include:

• Parking meters linked to the internet, signalling when the parking space is about to become available;

• Sensors to identify vacant spaces in city-centre car parks – or to report the length of queues at entrance barriers;

• Residential parking spaces available for short-term rent at short notice;

• Bus routes showing where bus stops are, along with real-time information about where buses are.

It is not clear who will create such applications and such maps. Many people might expect it to be Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, or the next big thing. I have my doubts.

More likely, it will be the new generation of open-data cities that will take the lead, by self-consciously creating and curating the data that can help meet the needs of the individual city and citizen.

To find out more, come along to the Open-data Cities Conference on Friday, April 20.

If you have an idea  that uses Ordnance Survey products and services, including OS OpenData or OS OpenSpace  to transform your neighbourhood, enter it on the GeoVation Challenge to be in with a chance to win a slice of the £115 000 prize fund.

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By viv, 14 February, 2012 8:00 am

Below is a guest post from Daniel Raven-Ellison of Mission:Explore on the new GeoVation Challenge – How can we transform neighbourhoods in Britain together?

I’m very excited to see the new challenge on GeoVation. It’s an exciting opportunity to bring about real change through geography. Thinking geographically is a powerful way to see patterns, make connections, present ideas and crucially, scale-up projects.

We have been lucky enough to win GeoVation awards twice. For us this has not only meant significant and important financial support, but also access to support, guidance and thinking that has helped us to push our solutions forward far more quickly than they would have done otherwise.

Our project, Mission:Explore, is deeply connected to the question that sits at the heart of the current challenge ‘How can we transform neighbourhoods in Britain together?’. At the GeoVation powwow 16 people identified 104 problems and 7 themes. One of these was “how do we provide safe environments for our children to be active?” and this problem sits at the heart of what Mission:Explore is about.  Children being active in their community has a wide range of benefits of course, not least their personal physical and mental well-being as well as that of their wider community.

Through Mission:Explore our solution is to encourage and inspire more children and families to play outdoors. We are working to do this through our series of children’s books and social website that includes hundreds of quirky outdoor activities to do. On our website children and families can pick missions , collect points and earn rewards for doing them. Some missions can be done anywhere but others need to be done in specific places.

Last year we won funding from GeoVation to tackle the problem “How can we improve transport in Britain?”. Our work focusses on the National Cycle Network and using new functionality on the website to find ways to increase the number of children and families using the cycle paths. Focussing on 10 cities in England we’re going to be releasing 500 missions along cycle paths that support playful learning and with a mixture of reward types. Some rewards are just online badges but others will result in physical prizes. For this project the Technology Strategy Board’s Ideas in Transit project has been providing financial support, UWE is helping with research, Sustrans are providing logistical and cycle counter support and the dairy company Arla are supporting us with sponsorship through their energetic Kids Closer to Nature campaign. The website itself is built in partnership with the fantastic interactive agency, The Workshop, in Sheffield. Mission:Explore the National Cycle Network will be going live from the end of this month and will be in full swing before the summer holidays.

We’re currently looking for charities and public sector organisations that would like to use Mission:Explore to challenge children and families to discover new places and learn in creative ways. Later this month we will be launching private accounts which will allow schools to create missions that only their pupils will be able to see.

Our experience of GeoVation has been a powerful and inspiring one. I really recommend that you take part and see how far you can get. Good luck.

Mission:Explore are currently crowd funding their next children’s book, Mission:Explore Food. They are looking for people like you to contribute as little as £1 to help make the book happen. In return you can be illustrated into the book, request an experience day and much more. Visit Mission:Explore Food to be part of it.

Daniel Raven-Ellison
Mission:Explore

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By viv, 26 January, 2012 8:00 am

In September 2011, GeoVation challenge winner’s liftshare began development of ‘myPTP- A Travel Plan Just for Me’; an innovative web-based tool, designed to provide personalised travel plans to individuals at a fraction of the current time and cost.

liftshare’s myPTP Project Manager, Katie Lumley, gives us a most up-to-date progress report on how the tool has been shaping up over the last 5 months:

Since September 2011, the liftshare project team have been working hard to develop and refine one of our most exciting projects – myPTP – funded through GeoVation and the Ideas in Transit project.  myPTP will uniquely combine public transport, walking, cycling, and car-share options for individual journeys, and have the potential to help any organisation or community effectively deliver personalised travel plans (PTPs) at a fraction of the current time and cost associated with traditional approaches.

myPTP encourages and enables users to make informed choices about the way they travel.

Development began with design, before working to build, test, and refine the new and innovative web-based tool. During November, our biggest hurdle; accessing data for all modes of transport (walk, cycle, car-share, bus and train) across the UK, was overcome, and work to integrate data for all transport options then began in December.

Users will input individual’s journey information and in return will receive clear information on all transport options available to them, including maps, local provision options such as community transport, and any incentives the organisation has put in place to change their travel behaviour e.g. a week’s free bus pass. Ongoing communication is then possible to monitor modal shift and follow up changes in provision etc. Below is a sneak-preview of the online myPTP results:

Over 38 organisations have already expressed interest in using myPTP to deliver PTPs to individuals, and of those three organisations have been chosen to pilot the tool this February. These initial tests will be carried out in collaboration with researchers from the University of West of England, through the Ideas in Transit project, and will help us to evaluate the usefulness and usability of myPTP from an end-user point of view (that’s me and you!), as well as assess its impact ongoing on travel behaviours. We are looking forward to hearing feedback from the test pilots so we can keep innovating and refining myPTP to ensure it is useful and effective for all.

We are very excited with the progress of myPTP so far; both internal development of the tool itself, as well as its seeming ability to appeal and meet individuals, organisations, and transport operator needs. If you would like to:

• Help individuals make informed smarter choices about their mode of travel, as well as improve accessibility.
• Better understand transport patterns of your organisation, to increase efficiency and save time and cost.
• Help Local Authorities determine shortfalls in provision and help local transport operators determine what services will best satisfy demand.
• Have on-going communication with individuals about their travel options to achieve real modal shift, and to relay any possible changes in provision.

myPTP could be your solution. For more information please feel free to contact me, Katie Lumley, on: (01953) 451166 or katie@liftshare.com.

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By viv, 23 December, 2011 8:30 am

Bikemapper.org.uk is new website looking collecting information to plan a revitalised London Cycle Network.  On the site you can upload photos and of parts of the network to build up a picture of what is working or not working and if anything is missing. Below Simon Parker tells us more:

I am pleased to be able to tell you about the launch of a new website, www.bikemapper.org.uk, which I hope you will be interested to visit.
The purpose of this website is to facilitate the study of a proposed design for a revitalised London Cycling Network. Primarily I am seeking to establish which sections of this network are functional and which are not, and from here it should be possible to build up a complete picture of the current cycling environment. It is hoped that, in turn, this would help to inform the debate about where future investments in cycling would be best placed.

The website is aimed mainly at people who have an interest in developing an amenable cycling environment in the capital, though naturally I would be delighted if the general public also felt inclined to contribute. In particular I ask that people upload any photos they may have of the London streetscape.

Bikemapper was made possible because of a number of people, beginning with Ben Irvine from Cycle Lifestyle, who is responsible for the London Cycle Map Campaign,, and who has done more than anyone to give my proposal a more polished edge. My sincere thanks to him, and also to a remarkably talented young man named Fela Maslen, who very patiently and competently has worked with me to develop the website.

I am extremely grateful to Martin Lubikowski from ML Design, Jon Haste from KOLB Illustration, Stuart France from Stuff Animated, Josh Coleman and James Nash from Bike Dock Solutions, and Willy and Guy Pearson from Pearson Cycles. Lastly I would like to thank my family for all their support over the years.

Simon Parker
simon@bikemapper.org.uk

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By viv, 16 November, 2011 8:30 am

We are really excited and pleased to be supporting National Geographic Education this Geography Awareness Week with our GeoVation, Mission:Explore. We’ve worked closely with them to create a series of missions that challenge children to go on adventures in their communities, explore their backyards and take action on issues that they care about. Young explorers can unlock points and collect online badges for the efforts. All the details of how you can take can be found on their website at www.geographyawarenessweek.org and the resources will be useful well beyond this week.

As part of this work I’ve been getting email alerts when newspapers, blogs and other media channels mention Geography Awareness Week. It’s exciting to see so many reports that focus on our creative and experiential approach to exploring local communities, but far too many have included and resorted back to the pub quiz style ‘name the capital’ quizzes that mask the opportunities of geography.

I personally find it infuriating that travel has become divorced from geography in the minds of so many people. Travel is usually a gulf away from geography section in book shops (if there is one). This is despite travel being arguably the biggest possible opportunity for the geography community to engage the wider public with the subject in an entertaining and enjoyable way. Exploration and travel are one of the physical manifestations of geographical enquiry and it’s time we reclaimed them. I believe making the explicit link between travel and geography will help to bring new life to geography, demonstrate that it is not just about factual knowledge building and reshape the way the public understands the subject.

The question is, how?

Daniel Raven-Ellison, Mission:Explore

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By viv, 19 October, 2011 8:00 am

Catch up with Mission:Explore with this update from Daniel Raven-Ellison:

12 days ago we released our new Mission:Explore website, since then we have watched as young and old(er) explorers have accepted, completed and then reported a wide range of missions. People have been photographing where the ‘wild’ is taking over from civilization, designing memorials and earning rewards for doing so. One explorer (Sir Spiffington) has already created his own website which includes a great animation and a funny film, all inspired by the new site.

Making the Mission:Explore website is a continual process. The funding that we won 5 months ago through GeoVation from Ideas in Transit and the Technology Strategy Board has allowed us to implement a number of significant features. These include:

• Partner accounts which let other organisations create their own challenges;
• Scoring and leaderboards, which will soon also include groups;
• An extras box on mission pages which includes QR codes that can be scanned for quick access to the relevant page along with a widget which can sit on other websites;
• Explorer profile pages so that users can keep track of started and completed missions, their points and keep an explorer log;
• A content management system for creating, risk checking, tagging, scoring and publishing missions;
• A split community with those not logged in and aged 12 or under not being able to see user generated content and missions which are rated for older users.

National Geographic Education are already using the site for their work in promoting geography awareness week.  I presented on Mission:Explore for teachers supporting National Geographic in Portland in August and you can see the videos from this here . Love Forest, OPAL, Priory School, the Geographical Association and many others are currently live on Mission:Explore or soon will be.

The core of the GeoVation work is to see how Mission:Explore can be used to increase the number of family leisure users on the National Cycle Network. Crucially, we want them to come back too. We are working with Sustrans not only to create the challenges but also to monitor user numbers in the field. An additional component is a the work we are doing within the project for the dairy company Arla. Arla want to bring a wide range of children Closer to Nature and we are bringing all of this together by using Mission:Explore and the National Cycle Network to draw young people out of sub-urban areas an into ‘nature spaces’. Our first trial will take place in Berkshire next month and we will be using our findings from this work to decide our following steps.

Last week we were lucky enough to be invited by the Technology Strategy Board to have a stand at Innovate ’11, the innovation networking event and exhibition. This is an example of the one of the unexpected benefits of working with GeoVation that has been a great help to our work. Innovate ’11 is was an awesome event and one that I would recommend you attend in the future if you are interested in cutting-edge innovation and creativity. At Innovate much of the interest in Mission:Explore was for rebranding it so that organisations or regions could have their own bespoke versions.

We are now at a stage where we are looking for GeoVators to GeoVate with us. We have a limited number of free accounts on Mission:Explore which can be used by charities and public sector organisations to create games, hunts, trails, learning activities and more. If you or someone you know would be interested in this offer they should email us at hello@missionexplore.net to find out more.

We will be blogging again next month with an update on our work to increase users of the National Cycle Network.

You can become an explorer on Mission:Explore for free by visiting www.missionexplore.net.

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By viv, 20 September, 2011 8:00 am

Since the last update, GeoVation Challenge winners,  mySociety, have launched FixMyTransport a site for public transport users to report problems and they are already having loads of visits and issues reported.  Myf Nixon, from mySociety, explains:

Last time we updated, FixMyTransport had launched, quietly and unobtrusively: we didn’t want to make a song and dance about it until we were certain that it was running smoothly.

On August 30th, we announced our presence to the world: mentions in national and international newspapers, on the radio, in specialist press and across the blogosphere soon meant that word spread: on that day, we had over 10,000 visitors (and were very relieved to see that our server load testing had paid off).

Since then, we’ve been really pleased at how the site has been taken up: over 700 issues have been reported; knowledgeable users are weighing in with good advice for others; and we’re beginning to forge relationships with some of the transport operators who have been quick to see FixMyTransport’s potential for their customer relations departments.

This week we saw the first of our campaigns to gather over 100 supporters. It’s been interesting to watch patterns emerge, too: the issues that seem to most concern our users to date are access (to stations for those with limited mobility or children in tow); fare prices; over-crowding and delays.

But there have been maverick reports too: one person requesting fewer seats on commuter trains (much outnumbered by reports that ask for more seats, it has to be said) and another wondering whether a slide might ease passenger congestion at Canada Water.

From the developer perspective, it’s been an intensive period of bug fixes, functionality enhancements, and user support. We’re logging of all the many suggestions that come to us via the ‘feedback’ button; our users seem particularly clued up on how they’d like the site to work better for them, which is great.

It’s been really gratifying to find that the vast majority of the feedback is warm and welcoming, even when the user has experienced a problem – in fact, FixMyTransport is already starting to feel like a community. There have been quite a few enquiries from people in other countries wondering if they can replicate the site – our answer is of course, yes; as with all mySociety projects, FixMyTransport is built on open source code and we are delighted to see others use it and contribute their own improvements or variations.

GeoVation funding was specifically for the mobile version of FixMyTransport, always a priority for a site that’s about travel. It was clear that for launch, even though an app would not be ready at that stage, we would need modified version of the website to support mobile user, and we put a lot of effort into making the mobile experience as good as possible.

We’re now seeing this as a preferred route to our finished mobile product: this approach removes the extra step for the user of actually downloading anything- it should be quick and easy just to visit the site on a browser. It also allows us to target multiple devices, and means that as features are introduced to the main site, they are also immediately accessible on mobile.

During the last month, we have been working on features specifically to help mobile users: integrating geolocation, and finding faster ways for users to report the most common problems on phones without too many keystrokes.

Although there are still many improvements on our list, FixMyTransport now works well on the phone models our visitors most frequently use, and we’re working on extending support and adding features that will make reporting issues from a mobile quick and easy. We’re getting there!

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By viv, 16 September, 2011 8:00 am

Back in June we told you how GeoVation Challenge winner, AccessAdvisr, were putting the foundations in place to enable delivery of a proof of concept product.  Below, Neil Taylor tells us more about what they’ve been doing since.

Since the last AccessAdvisr blog we have been busily rounding up data sources for our proof of concept trial in Nottingham.  Every data holder we have engaged with so far has been overwhelmingly positive and forthcoming in their support for AccessAdvisr, which has been fantastic.  It is clear there is a genuine desire to see this concept work, and for our part we are itching to get our beta version up and running in Nottingham so that we can start the process of establishing and engaging with a local user community.

Having gathered up most of the data sources and web-services we need to populate our accessible map base, the next step was to track down a software developer.  We spoke to a few local firms, but are delighted to welcome Realistic Digital on board.  Based in Leicester they are just down the road from our base in Nottingham, which has already enabled us to hit the ground running.  At the time of writing we are in the midst of finalising the specification for the proof of concept version of AccessAdvisr, having kicked things off with an intensive design workshop at the beginning of September.  The software build and web-design activities are pencilled in for the next month, so if all goes well we should conducting our first round of user testing in late autumn/early winter.

If you can’t wait and want to learn more about AccessAdvisr, then please contact Neil Taylor at ITP on 0115 9886903, or email: taylor@itpworld.net.  AccessAdvisr is also now on Facebook, so you can ‘like’ us in order to follow all of the latest project developments.

Neil Taylor

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By viv, 14 September, 2011 8:00 am

Have you heard about liftshare week?  It’s being organised by liftshare, one the winners of our ‘How can we improve transport in Britain?’ GeoVation Challenge. Find out more about it and also what’s happening with myPTP below:

The countdown is now on to liftshare Week 2011 (3^rd – 7^th October 2011). liftshare Week is the UK-wide event which aims to encourage more people to discover the benefits of car-sharing.  Awareness of car-sharing is at its height during liftshare week and more people than ever are registering to share their journeys, so there is no better time to give it a try.    This year we’re incentivising individuals to give car-sharing a try, by reminding them that drivers in the 1980’s will only have been paying 37 pence per litre for petrol!!  The only way you can get yourself such a great price on petrol these days is by splitting your petrol costs with other people.  Share your commute with just one other person, and you will be leaving your car at home 2 weeks out of every four – typically saving yourself about £800 a year.  A persuasive argument we hope you’ll agree!  Individuals can register for free at www.liftshare.com and why not tell your friends and family members too?  The more car-sharers we’ve got, the better chance everyone’s got of finding their ideal matches.

For Businesses and Communities who have their own car-share schemes, there is no better time to do some promotion and capitalise on the heightened awareness. We’re expecting more car-sharers to join in this year than ever before, so taking part will do wonders for your travel plan targets.   Organisations already working with liftshare should already be well under way with their preparation and lots of promotional materials have already been made available.  If  you don’t have your own car-share scheme you can take a look at http://www.liftshare.com/business/liftshareweek.asp#chap3 where you can downloads lots of freebies to get your staff car-sharing.  Alternatively visit www.liftshare.com/business or give us a call on 01953 451166 to find out how you can get involved.

In other news…… myPTP is also in full swing and our developers have been working hard.  We’ve been talking to lots of organisations to ensure we’ve got a spot-on understanding of what their Travel Survey requirements are, which has proved really useful in helping us to hone our ideas into an exciting new tool.  More on this to come…

Louise Boom

liftshare

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By viv, 13 September, 2011 8:00 am

Interest in the London Cycle Map Campaign, one of our GeoVation Challenge winners,  is growing;   Ben Irvine tells us more, below.   Have you signed the petition to support it yet?

I’m delighted to say that 1,000 people have now signed the London Cycle Map Campaign petition which is being run by Cycle Lifestyle magazine .

Fittingly, the 1,000th signature was accompanied by a comment which really says it all:
“Love this idea, great for tourists and locals.”

Public interest in the London Cycle Map Campaign is intensifying as the 2012 London Olympics approaches. With millions of visitors and hundreds of millions of viewers around the world rolling up for the ‘greenest Olympics ever’, the capital is calling out for a better system of cycle routes and mapping.

In step with this mood, political interest in the idea of unifying and improving London’s cycling infrastructure has been growing too. In 2010 Labour Baroness Oona King was championing the idea of a ‘Tube map’ for cyclists, and more recently Green Party mayoral candidate Jenny Jones has promised ‘a safe cycling network for the whole of London, not just blue paint and hire bikes in zone 1’.

The London Cycle Map Campaign is calling on politicians and cycling campaigners alike to ensure that the London Cycle Map idea becomes a stated electoral issue in the run up to both the 2012 mayoral elections and subsequent Olympics.

We believe Simon Parker’s ‘compass colour’ mapping system is genuinely groundbreaking and would offer an economy of navigation unparalleled by proposed or existing cycle networks anywhere in the world. His map is also – importantly – beautiful, iconic and inspiring, and would really send a statement to cyclists and non-cyclists in London and the world over.

Let’s make it happen. Here’s to the next 1,000 signatures…

Ben Irvine
Cycle Lifestyle Editor and London Cycle Map Campaign